Three dimensional (3D) digital graphic design, video editing, and media-editing applications provide designers and artists with the necessary tools to create much of the media seen today through the various media outlets. These tools allow designers the ability to generate, compose, composite, and animate the images and videos in a virtual 3D digital space.
A virtual 3D digital space, like real-world space, requires lighting in order for the objects within to be visually perceived. Without any light added, the virtual 3D digital space would appear completely dark even if there are objects that are composited within the space. Media editing applications provide tools for adding light sources into the 3D space. For instance, an ambient light in the 3D space illuminates all objects in the space from all directions equally for an overall fill effect, or to add a color cast.
In addition to the uniform illumination provided by the ambient light feature, media editing applications also provide ways of illuminating objects with lights that cast a particular lighting pattern onto objects. For instance, an elliptical lighting pattern can be cast onto objects as if emitted by a spot light in space. Alternatively, a gradient of light can be cast onto an object in space as if emitted by a light bulb.
One problem a user encounters when working with interactive media applications, such as the one whose virtual 3D space is illustrated in FIG. 1, is that only the lighting patterns on the surfaces of objects are visible. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 1, a light source has been added into a virtual 3D digital space 100, which is also an interactive work space. The light source illuminates any surfaces that are within the light's modeled range, such as media object 110, which appears to be lit from a position near the bottom left hand corner of the object. The source of the light is modeled as either a set of axes 115, or as a line-drawing 220 of a sphere as shown in FIG. 2, which represents the 3D structure and position of the light.
The elliptical lighting pattern is another example of lighting provided by a media editing application where only the lighting patterns on the surfaces of objects are visible. As previously mentioned, an elliptical lighting pattern can be cast onto objects in the 3D space as if the elliptical light pattern is emitted by a spot light. However, like in the examples illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, only the elliptical pattern effect of the light is visible on the surfaces within the light's range, while the light itself is merely modeled by a set of axes or by an icon.
A user may manually illustrate a realistic-appearing light source, for example, by compositing an opaque white circle over a larger semi-transparent white circle and inserting the composite illustration into the virtual 3D space 100 at the appropriate location to simulate the light source. A user may also manually illustrate other effects of lights, such as a visible light beam to represent light rays emitted by a spot light.
Such manual compositing is time-consuming, and is not easily modified from within the 3D interactive compositing work space. Furthermore, the manual illustration is merely a simulation of a light effect. There is thus a need to provide the user with more lighting effects than just lighting patterns cast onto the surfaces of objects, without requiring the user to manually illustrate and composite simulations of such lighting effects.
The concepts described in this section have not necessarily been previously conceived, or implemented in any prior approach. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any concepts described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.